Carlsen Wins Thriller Over Nihal, Takes Another Titled Tuesday

GM Magnus Carlsen needed a few rounds to get himself going in Titled Tuesday on January 20, but still ended up scoring 9.5/11 and winning the tournament outright. He has now won two of the three Titled Tuesdays of 2026 so far and his fourth of the current split.

By the time of his 10th-round matchup, Carlsen was in form, and he won a complicated yet well-played game against GM Nihal Sarin that ultimately decided the tournament. Eight players finished with nine points, with GM Denis Lazavik taking second place after drawing Carlsen in the final round and holding a big tiebreak score. 

Broadcast

If you missed today’s Take Take Take broadcast with GM David Howell, WFM Maud Rodsmoen, and Offerspill Chess Club President CM Jon Kristian Haarr, you can catch it below!

A travelling Carlsen could not appear after the tournament, but Lazavik did briefly. “During the last game, I thought I had some chances to win but overall I’m happy,” he said of taking second place.

CCT Standings

Titled Tuesday’s role in the Champions Chess Tour (CCT) continues, with the second of three splits now more than halfway concluded. The updated top 10 for the Winter Split is as follows:

Tournament Recap

Out of 426 players to enter the tournament, 19 reached a score of 4/4, but only six made it to 5/5. Carlsen was one of the six despite struggling mightily in most of his games to that point, including in the very first round when he was pushed to his limits in a rook ending by Venezuelan CM Christian Allen. Unfortunately for Allen, he would falter in the time scramble.

Carlsen’s opponents kept on making blunders—”crude” was the adjective Magnus attached to them, while Howell preferred “terminal”—and Carlsen kept escaping. After wriggling out of trouble yet again in the fifth round, when GM Shamsiddin Vokhidov blundered a piece, Carlsen told his viewers, “If I’m going to receive gifts like this, then I certainly have a chance at this tournament.” Indeed he did.

But first, two of the three sixth-round games among those on 5/5 ended in draws, including Carlsen’s. The only one to win was GM Wesley So, putting him alone in first place on 6/6 after he defeated Andreikin.

So’s first game trying to protect his lead came with Black against Carlsen. Despite going down a pawn, So held the draw, staying ahead of Carlsen in the standings. GM Jeffery Xiong, however, did catch up with So after defeating IM Renato Terry. 

Behind So and Xiong, a whopping 14 players had six points entering the eighth round. In their game in the round, So gained an  advantage over Xiong, but Xiong was able to hold the draw, and soon enough there was a nine-way tie on 7/8. All of the games between the group of 14 players were decisive, including GM Alexey Sarana finding 33…Rxh3+!! to win against GM Zbigniew Pakleza.

Perhaps the break did Carlsen some good, because he would play his best games of the tournament in the ninth and 10th rounds, and indeed was the only player among the pre-break co-leaders to win in both rounds. Of the five games to include a player on 7/8, Carlsen was the first to win, taking out Xiong. “My mind was working reasonably well,” Carlsen would say after, and it only got better for him in the next game.

Carlsen, Nihal, and So all had an 8/9 score entering the 10th round. Carlsen and Nihal repeated an opening that, as Howell noted, Carlsen had defeated GM Gukesh Dommaraju with in the 2023 World Cup. “Unless Nihal has some incredible novelty up his sleeve here, then Black is doing relatively alright,” Carlsen would tell his viewers. Later on, however, he took 73 seconds of his time in a tactical situation on the 20th move, and did not find the computer’s solution. The position remained highly complex, and Nihal would spend more than two minutes on moves 25-28 to give the time back and more.

By move 46, Carlsen had a rook, two pawns, and decisive advantage against Nihal’s bishop, knight, and no pawns. Carlsen’s h-pawn promoted on his 55th move, and the new queen maneuvered around Nihal’s pieces to deliver checkmate six moves after that. “One of the highest quality blitz games I’ve seen in ages by both sides,” by Howell’s estimation, was over.

While all that was still ongoing, Sarana defeated GM Benjamin Bok, and then Lazavik defeated So, results which kept So on eight points while putting Sarana and Lazavik on 8.5 each. Although Lazavik didn’t checkmate So until move 90, their game took less time than the 61-move contest between Nihal and Carlsen.

All eyes now went to the 11th round game between Carlsen and Lazavik, a mini-preview of the Speed Chess Championship semifinal match coming in February. So played Sarana in a game that would also be relevant to first place if Carlsen did not win. After refusing a repetition, Carlsen in fact did not win, ending up in a similar situation as he had in the first round: an unclear rook endgame. This time, Carlsen seemed to be on his back foot, and he ultimately settled for getting stalemated. That would end up good enough for the outright tournament victory once So and Sarana also made a draw.

Behind Carlsen and Lazavik in the standings, Xiong and Sarana took third and fourth place. Pakleza finished fifth and GM Sam Sevian sixth. In places seven through nine, GMs Andrey Esipenko, Volodar Murzin, and Cristobal Henriquez did not earn cash, but they did get CCT Standings points, as did So in sole 10th on 8.5/11. IM Karina Ambartsumova took home a prize and Titled Tuesday standings points in 55th place as the highest-scoring woman in the field.

January 20 Titled Tuesday | Final Standings (Top 20)

(Full final standings.)